As a Muslim with a weak grasp on the difference between fiction and reality, I was a bit weird about Christmas. Santa Claus definitely didn't deliver to us, and my parents never made a big deal of buying me stuff, which they never treated with the fuss and ceremony associated with "gifts": instead, it was more of a "Take This, It May Help You On Your Quest": the goal wasn't to make me feel happy and loved, but to deal with just the, bare necessities, the simple, bare necessities, to deal with all the worries and the strife of a growing child.
O the other hand, there were all those movies in the French and American television networks we saw through the satellite. All those Aesops that showed people who believed in Christmas being rewarded, people who didn't ending up believing in the end, forgiveness and gifts and fuzzies for everyone who would want them...
It was confusing. Why didn't Santa show up in Muslim countries? Why didn't he show up in most of the Third World? If he could deal with 1,300,000,000 freaking Christians in one night, surely he could reach the rest of the planet, and, I dunno, give "those kids in Rwanda" some nice cakes or whatever... and give me the freaking Megazord my parents absolutely refused to buy. The best I got was Ninjor (he was awesome, but not a MEGAZORD).
So... in the end, Christmas didn't make me mistrust the sanity of those around me the way Islam ended up doing. Though it would have been better if they did give the gifts, openly: not giving them at all left me for some time with the impression that it was Santa who didn't bother showing up because of the lack of ambiance or whatever. Eventually, instead, I ended up mistrusting the media in general and movies and cartoons in particular.
Somewhat offtopic: besides all the gift stuff and as an afterthought, there was all that business about celerating the Birth of Jesus, who is an extremely important guy for Muslims, it's just that they don't celebrate his birthday because they don't really see the point, and leave that to the Christians. However, as a Muslim child I wasn't immune to all the parafernalia and the imagery and the rhethoric about Our Saviour's Coming. As Handel would put it in a way that deeply compelled me back then: "AND HE SHALL PU-RI-FAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-AND HE SHALL PURIFY!- AND *HE! SHALL! PURIFI-Y!" If I had known about Raptor Jesus back then, maybe I would have taken it with a little more salt. As it was, Jesus being bon was Serious Business for me, especially since the child protagonist of The Rescuers introduced me to praying to the Child Jesus in a scene that even then tasted very much like diabetes, but which, despite that, felt very compelling and sincere, and, more importantly, was shown to work. if only In Mysterious Ways.
+1 funny
I've long entertained a dubious regard for the practice of lying to children about the existence of Santa Claus. Parents might claim that it serves to make children's lives more magical and exciting, but as a general rule, children are adequately equipped to create fantasies of their own without their parents' intervention. The two reasons I suspect rest at the bottom line are adherence to tradition, and finding it cute to see one's children believing ridiculous things.
Personally, I considered this to be a rather indecent way to treat one's own children, and have sometimes wondered whether a large proportion of conspiracy theorists owe their origins to the realization that practically all the adults in the country really are conspiring to deceive children for no tangible benefit. However, since I began frequenting this site, I've been exposed to the alternate viewpoint that this realization may be good for developing rationalists, because it provides children with the experience of discovering that they hold beliefs which are wrong and absurd, and that they must reject them.
So, how did the Santa deception affect you personally? How do you think your life might have been different without it? If your parents didn't do it to you, what are your impressions on the experience of not being lied to when most other children are?
Also, I promise to upvote anyone who links to an easy to register for community of conspiracy theorists where they would not be averse to being asked the same question.